The Ultimate Fighting Championship is far and away the top Mixed Martial Arts organization in North America. In fact, American fans identify the UFC so closely with the sport of MMA that the public and media alike often refer to MMA simply as "ultimate fighting." The truth of the matter is that, for the bulk of its existence, the UFC was not even close to being the world's top MMA orginazation. That place of distinction belonged to Pride Fighting Championships.
Based in Japan, Pride FC was the home of most the world's best fighters from roughly 1998 until just recently, when its future was threatened by news of internal corruption and Yakuza (Japanese mob) connections. The most immediate and devastating consequence of these reports was that Pride FC lost its contract with major Japanese television network Fuji TV- a contract the company has tried in vain to secure with another network. To get a sense of how huge a turn of events this was in Japan, imagine if scandal rocked the NFL so thoroughly that it was no longer broadcast on television in America.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the UFC has been flourishing ever since its reality show on Spike TV (The Ultimate Fighter) has brought it mainstream attention in the U.S. The UFC is run by the company Zuffa L.L.C., which in turn is owned by casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. This morning weeks of speculation was confirmed: the Fertittas (but not the UFC itself, mind you) have purchased Pride FC.
Now there is no relationship in mainstream American sports that parallels the competitive relationship that Pride FC and the UFC have shared for nearly a decade. In American sports culture, there is presently only one major league for each major sport. The best analogy I can think of involves imagining that all the European basketball leagues were one big league and had a total profitability comparable to the NBA. Then NBA stuggles financially and is sold to the owners of the European league and is henceforth run as a European entity. For you pro-wrestling fans, the Fertittas purchasing Pride FC mirrors (to respectable degree, at least) Vince McMahon buying WCW after nearly being put out of business by that company during the Monday Night War.
Here is a link to the online article I read this morning:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3669&zoneid=2
Any further thoughts I have on this topic will be made in the comments section of this post.
Based in Japan, Pride FC was the home of most the world's best fighters from roughly 1998 until just recently, when its future was threatened by news of internal corruption and Yakuza (Japanese mob) connections. The most immediate and devastating consequence of these reports was that Pride FC lost its contract with major Japanese television network Fuji TV- a contract the company has tried in vain to secure with another network. To get a sense of how huge a turn of events this was in Japan, imagine if scandal rocked the NFL so thoroughly that it was no longer broadcast on television in America.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the UFC has been flourishing ever since its reality show on Spike TV (The Ultimate Fighter) has brought it mainstream attention in the U.S. The UFC is run by the company Zuffa L.L.C., which in turn is owned by casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. This morning weeks of speculation was confirmed: the Fertittas (but not the UFC itself, mind you) have purchased Pride FC.
Now there is no relationship in mainstream American sports that parallels the competitive relationship that Pride FC and the UFC have shared for nearly a decade. In American sports culture, there is presently only one major league for each major sport. The best analogy I can think of involves imagining that all the European basketball leagues were one big league and had a total profitability comparable to the NBA. Then NBA stuggles financially and is sold to the owners of the European league and is henceforth run as a European entity. For you pro-wrestling fans, the Fertittas purchasing Pride FC mirrors (to respectable degree, at least) Vince McMahon buying WCW after nearly being put out of business by that company during the Monday Night War.
Here is a link to the online article I read this morning:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3669&zoneid=2
Any further thoughts I have on this topic will be made in the comments section of this post.
2 comments:
This link will take you to a blog report by an MMA reporter who attended the Japanese press conference at which the sale of Pride and its details were officially announced.
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=7086
In my post, I likened this sale to WWE's purchase of WCW. A quote I read from a Japanese reporter echoed these thoughts. This writer perceives Pride and UFC will now coexist as WWE products Raw and Smackdown have coexisted since the WWE brand extension nearly 5 years ago. It seems that Pride and UFC will operate autonomously for the most part but, at least once a year, there will be a Super Bowl level event where the top stars from under each banner will fight one another.
On a recent radio show, Sherdog editor Josh Gross commented that Zuffa has openly stated that it seeks to mirror the business model of NASCAR. In 2006, Zuffa purchased "minor league" promotions World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) and World Fighting Alliance (WFA). Zuffa simply folded the WFA and took over the contracts of many of its best fighters, most notably Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (who will be fighting Chuck Liddell for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship in May). The WEC, on the other hand, has become the UFC's Busch Series- a "minor league" where it can develop young talent and give veterans an opportunity to compete on a smaller stage when they hit rough patches in their careers (e.g. Joe Riggs).
Josh Gross said that if you wanted to push the NASCAR comparison even further, Zuffa's purchase of Pride is like the owners of NASCAR buying Formula 1 Racing.
He likened the purchase to the AFL/NFL merger? Does that mean that we'll soon have the Ultimate Bowl?? -heh- I've always wondered how you could make a bowl bigger than "Super" without sounding too corny. But seriously, this sounds like a big damn deal for MMA.
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